Greater New Orleans

Evacuees hurry across the tarmac at the Boulder Municipal Airport after being rescued by helicopter from the Pinewood Springs area on Monday, Sept. 16. Rescuers grounded by weekend rains took advantage of the break in the weather to resume searches for people still stranded, with 21 helicopters fanning out over the mountainsides and the plains to drop supplies and airlift those who need help.
(AP Photo/The Daily Camera, Jeremy Papasso)

The rescues in the flooded neighborhoods around Boulder, Colo., are hauntingly familiar to people in Southeast Louisiana. In fact, the helicopter missions being flown this week are the most since Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches in August 2005 left thousands of people here stranded on rooftops.

The cause of the flooding is different. In Colorado, torrential rains over the past week have washed out roads and bridges and flooded almost 20,000 homes, destroying 1,500 of them. Eight people had died as of Thursday; more than 2,100 people had been rescued by air and ground teams. Seventy-eight children were picked up by helicopter after being stranded at a high-elevation camp during a fifth-grade field trip.

In some spots where roads were cut off by flooding, officials were making plans to drop food and water to residents.

Jessica Klauzer-Zimmerman sits in her bedroom of her flood damaged home in Boulder, Colo., on Wednesday, Sept. 18. Klauzer-Zimmerman woke up Thursday Sept. 12, to knee-deep water inside her townhouse. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski)

And, as Boulder residents did for us after Katrina, we should look for ways to help in their recovery.

Because rescues are still going on, it may take a little time to figure out exactly what is needed. Louisiana Red Cross volunteers were heading to the Boulder area Tuesday and Wednesday, prepared to stay for several weeks.

There were so many people from so many cities who reached out to help us after Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaches that it is impossible to remember them all. But people from Boulder were generous with their money and their time.

In 2006, three school districts in the Boulder area sent at least seven moving vans of donated classroom, cafeteria and office furniture to New Orleans for schools that had been damaged in the disaster.

Boulder graphic designer Leif Steiner in December 2005 convinced more than 90 graphic artists from across the world to create posters that were sold to raise money for Katrina relief. He wanted to do something lasting, he said. For those who bought one of the posters, he succeeded. In addition to raising money, they are still a reminder of New Orleans.

Then there was Brad Feld, a managing director at the Foundry Group in Boulder, who helped raise $50,000 for building low-cost housing in New Orleans to replace flooded homes. The effort was called Boulder Building New Orleans, and the group worked with Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans.

Those are just a few examples, albeit high-profile ones, of Boulder residents helping us in those early months after the flood, when so much needed to be done that it seemed overwhelming.

Now people in Boulder need a hand. Surely we can find many ways to help.

New Orleanian Elisabeth Gleckler wrote a letter published Tuesday at ColoradoDaily.com offering advice and moral support.

"I learned a lot in post-Hurricane Katrina: A new world understanding, a nuanced sense of humor. I encountered amazing volunteers and disaster professionals. I have new building skills. There are a lot of us in New Orleans (and Sandy survivors on the East Coast) who 'get' what you will be facing," she said.

All of us who lived through the flooding after Katrina know exactly what people in Colorado are facing. Our hearts go out to them. And so does our thanks for what they did to help us in the dark days after Katrina.